by Evan the Unrelentless

6 posts from August 2008

August 26, 2008

You may enjoy this NY Times interactive Flash map quite a bit.Slide the year-pointer to see which regions won lots of metals. It's fun to keep an eye on a pair of rivals (e.g. France and England) and watch how the power shifts, year by year. Also of interest:

Surprisingly old: Japan was bringing home plenty of gold all the way back in the 30’s.

Very new: The Caribbean nations sprinting dominance didn’t put them on the map until this decade.

Non-starters: Except for Kenyan marathoners, the entire contintent of Africa is invisible.

Glad to forget: The sum power of the Communists buried the USA in medal counts every year.

August 09, 2008

I felt compelled to create a jobs graphic today. Key to the bars: writers(white), computers(pink), biotech(blue).It shows the average number of job ads placed each day on Craigslist for various cities.

I tallied and averaged the ads from August 4, 6, and 8. I should note that the category labeled “writing” is largely a catchall for many onerous job titles at law firms and pharmaceutical companies.

Speaking as a Detroiter, I always knew we were slipping a little in national importance. But I used to be buoyed up by certain boasts we could make, like that our population put us around 5th in the country or that we are #1 for car assembly lines.

What a sobering moment when I scanned CraigsList cities and saw that CL doesn't consider The Motor City worth a link on the main craigslist directory. There are 22 major areas listed there and guess what, Motown, you are not considered one of the 22 big regions in America. To find jobs, a Detroiter must undergo the humiliation of clicking the link labeled "More..."

Oh Detroit! You are tossed amongst the lesser cities: just another "Columbus", "Little Rock", or "Helena"...